WAMSI Node 4.2.1b - Development and validation of an estuarine health index for the Swan Estuary

This project (WAMSI Node 4.2.1b) aimed to develop an index for assessing the health of the Swan Estuary, based on fish assemblage characteristics.

The index incorporates a suite of metrics, each of which measures a different aspect of the fish community, e.g. species diversity and composition, use of the Estuary as a nursery habitat, and the trophic structure (the feeding relationships between species) of the estuarine fish community.The study incorporated and utilized historical data from 1977-2004, plus current sampling (2007-2009), to establish reference conditions for multiple fish community metrics, against which the recent, current and future status of the estuary is assessed.

Data is available as two Excel spreadsheets: Establishing_reference_and_scoring_seine_Metrics.xls Establishing_reference_and_scoring_gill_Metrics.xls

The gill net and seine net files contain, respectively, for each offshore and nearshore historical fish sample collected between 1976 and 2009: (i) the raw values calculated for each of the selected fish metrics comprising the offshore and nearshore health indices; (ii) the corresponding metric scores (i.e. scored in comparison to the appropriate reference conditions I derived for each metric); and (iii) the final health index scores for each historical sample.

The historical studies used in the project are all detailed in the final report.